Tension, arrests as protests over Gaza roil US campuses

Police break up demonstrations, over 300 arrested since protests in campuses began last week

LOS ANGELES/JERUSALEM: College campuses across the United States braced for fresh protests by pro-Palestinian students on Thursday, extending a week of increasingly confrontational standoffs with police, mass arrests and accusations of anti-Semitism. The Israel-Hamas conflict and humanitarian crisis in Gaza has lit a match of shock and divisive outrage in American universities from New York to California.

More than 200 protesters were arrested on Wednesday and on Thursday at universities in Los Angeles, Boston and Austin, Texas where a fresh rally was scheduled for midday.

The spreading protests began at Columbia University in New York, where a midnight deadline set by college officials was fast approaching for students to remove an encampment that has become a symbolic epicentre of the movement after more than 100 demonstrators were arrested there last week.

Visiting the campus on Wednesday, top Republican leader House Speaker Mike Johnson condemned the nature of the protests and suggested it could be necessary to call out the National Guard.

US ally Israel launched its war in Gaza after the Hamas attack on October 7 that left around 1,170 people dead.

Student protesters say they are expressing solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, where the death toll has topped 34,305, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, and are calling on universities to divest from companies with ties to Israel.

White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said President Joe Biden backed free speech. “The president believes that free speech, debate and non-discrimination on college campuses are important.”

The protests pose a major

challenge to university administrators who are trying to balance campus commitments to free expression amid complaints that the rallies have crossed a line into intimidation and fuelled a surge in anti-Semitism.

Demonstrations flared at the University of Southern California’s Los Angeles campus, where 93 people were arrested for tres

passing, and at the University of Texas in Austin, where 34 were arrested. Protests and encampments have sprung up at universities from coast to coast, including at New York University and Yale — both of which also saw dozens of students arrested earlier this week — Harvard, Brown University, MIT, the University of Michigan and elsewhere.

Netanyahu says protests on US campuses ‘horrific’

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has condemned proPalestinian student protests in US universities as “horrific”, saying the demonstrations “have to be stopped”. “What’s happening in America’s college campuses is horrific,” Netanyahu said in a statement, echoing con

cerns voiced primarily by supporters of Israel over the safety of Israeli or Jewish students and faculty as the protests intensify.

Some have pointed to anti-Semitic incidents and argued that university leaders are enabling intimidation and hate speech.

“Anti-Semitic mobs have taken over leading universities,” claimed Netanyahu.

AFP Pro-Palestinian protesters hold a small rally outside of Columbia University in New York City while a student is arrested during a pro-Palestine demonstration at the The University of Texas at Austin in Austin, Texas, on Wednesday.

AP Pro-Palestinian protesters are pushed to the edge of campus by Texas State Troopers on horses at the University of Texas , in Austin, Texas, on Wednesday. Student protests over the Israel-Hamas war have popped up on an increasing number of college campuses.